


Vanish

by Zarla



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Bad Ending, M/M, Suicide, old people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-28
Updated: 2007-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/pseuds/Zarla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snake decides to go on his own terms.</p>
<p>Written before MGS4 was released, something speculative based on the trailer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vanish

**Author's Note:**

> Shortish. I also went with that info I saw somewhere (probably wiki or something, haha) that Snake's octocamo was Otacon's invention. I'm not sure if that's been confirmed or not, but it makes sense to me so I went with it.

This was it. This had to be it. Maybe the final steps had been taken and this would all come to an end. They'd cut off what they thought was the snake's head and hopefully the body would die out afterwards. This had to be a step forward, something significant, the end of this era. This had to be it.

Whatever the impact on the global state of war, Liquid was dead. Snake had contacted him with the news a short while ago, although he sounded anything but jubilant over his triumph over one of his oldest antagonists.

Otacon told him to come back to base, to rendezvous so they could decide their next course of action with Campbell but mostly to celebrate this victory, but Snake told him that he had one last thing he had to do. Otacon asked him what it was, but Snake hadn't shared any further specifics, simply ordering Otacon to patrol an area he said needed surveillance in the interim.

Otacon found he liked this kind of responsibility through the course of their battles together and felt well up to the task of protecting the alleyway as Snake directed, sure that it was important in one way or another.

He called Snake again to check in after some minutes had passed and no one had come by the area he was supposed to guard. Snake didn't respond to his call. He might have turned off his codec, although Otacon could not think of a reason why he would do such a thing, or a task that would require that much radio silence.

The relief he felt at the news of Liquid's death was fading now, slowly replaced with a familiar anxiety.

What if something had happened? It was possible that Snake had run low on the medication Naomi had given him...what if he was in trouble? What if he needed help? If Snake was unconscious then he couldn't respond to his codec or signal for assistance, and maybe that was why he was so silent.

While his robot was versatile, it wasn't up to the task of carrying a full-grown man, much less one as heavy as Snake. The most he could do if Snake was in trouble would be to wait by his side and call for help, but maybe that was all he needed to do.

Otacon switched to one of the other windows open on his desktop after setting his robot on an automated hostile sweep. Snake's octocamo, one of his most brilliant inventions in his own opinion and one that had been put to proper use this time, was linked to his computer, and using a variation of the Soliton radar system, he could see Snake's current location. Otacon mostly limited this window to the occasional glance, as his robot generally took up more of his attention and Snake would fill him in via codec, but this silence was worrisome.

There, Snake's dot. It didn't move. Snake had definitely fallen unconscious...most likely due to a lack of medicine, or perhaps an unlucky break with a lucky hostile. The battle with Liquid must have been exhausting, whatever it entailed, and Snake perhaps had overestimated his abilities.

After all, he was...getting old.

Aging quickly, and the thought brought an unpleasant and frightening possibility to mind. Otacon quickly memorized the fastest path to Snake's motionless dot from his current position and switched windows again. The robot snapped up and Otacon again noticed that there still were no other potential enemies anywhere near him. Why was he guarding this alleyway if there was nothing to guard it from?

Snake had sent him here for a reason...what if it wasn't what he thought it was? What if...

His robot took a corner sharply, spun and nearly fell before continuing on its way. Otacon clicked the "send" button on his codec program repeatedly, still set to 141.80 and Snake did not respond.

Fretting was turning quickly to panicking.

He kept his attention split between the radar and the robot's camera, watching the dot grow closer and closer. If Snake had passed out, that would explain why he wasn't responding and wasn't moving. Otacon was probably worrying over nothing, Snake was merely exhausted and trying to get some rest and he probably wouldn't be pleased at Otacon's robot barging in on whatever it was he was doing.

What was it that he was doing...? What else could he have to do here after Liquid was gone?

"C'mon Snake, where are you..."

The dot was very close now. Otacon turned the robot carefully to avoid another hazardous spin, and judging from the radar and what he was seeing, Snake had to be in that building there.

He'd come this far as quickly as he could, and yet, Otacon moved towards the doorway with some hesitance. He wanted to think he was just being cautious, but there was a deep sense of unease that he couldn't shake that kept his movements in check. The feeling that something was very wrong, that there was some kind of tragedy Snake had yet to tell him about and this doorway was the barrier that kept him ignorant.

While he slowed down, he didn't stop. He had to find Snake, help him if he was in trouble, protect him if he couldn't do that himself. His little robot wasn't much but it was more than he could have done in the past, and he'd do everything he could now.

The room was mostly empty, except for a few barrels here and there, broken window panes and hanging wires and two flat pieces of cement stacked on top of one another in the center of the room. Amidst the rubble and dust on the floor was Snake, flat on his back with his legs propped up by the blocks of cement, a gun held loose in one hand.

Otacon immediately moved further into the room to try and wake Snake up, and as the camera jerked and moved from the motion he gradually noticed a dark shadow near Snake's head that wasn't caused by any of the walls.

The robot glided to a stop by Snake's shoulder as Otacon covered his mouth with his hands. The noise he made didn't have a single word associated to it. It wasn't as loud or powerful as a scream, but it was more than a gasp. It was some strangled, incomprehensible animal noise, muffled and pained.

He stared at the screen, unblinking, uncomprehending, for longer than he thought he would before he reached for the mouse to make sure that the robot's camera was aimed correctly, that it wasn't a trick of the light. His hand fell too hard and his optical mouse's light blinked out, causing the robot's camera to stay firmly pointed where it was and frustrated, frightened, Otacon slammed the mouse down again to make it work and then threw it away from himself, not even sure of what he was doing anymore.

Back to covering his mouth with his hands as he stared at the computer screen, at the image of Snake, eyes closed, lying in a pool of blood. The flickering dot so close to his own on the radar, the readout of constant environmental factors through the robot's display logging the change in the floor's texture.

When the emotional high quieted enough for him to separate it into defined emotions, Otacon found he felt angry more than anything else.

Betrayed.

Was this why Snake had ordered him away? Had told him to guard some meaningless alley while he...did this?

"Why..."

Snake had told him about his father, about his brothers, about his genes and how he doubted the course of his life back when they had left Shadow Moses and become friends but Otacon had assumed that that conflict was behind Snake, that he believed in the philosophy that they both espoused and worked so hard for, to work for a future rather than wallow in regret and to do this, to leave him _alone_ like this-

And it was a selfish thought but it was the first thing that came to mind and Otacon couldn't deny it, couldn't believe that Snake would simply _leave_, leave him without any kind of proper good-bye-

"Why didn't you tell me?!" This time it was a scream, his voice topping the oscilloscope in his communication program, and he felt the first tears fall. "I could have been with you! Why'd you have to do this alone?"

The anger and betrayal he felt was rapidly becoming overpowered by loss and emptiness, the thought that the last time he'd hear Snake's voice was that final order, the last time he'd see him alive was when he'd given him ammo some hours ago, the last time he'd pick dog hair out of his clothes and rattle off lung cancer rates and watch war movies and give him directions and lead him through a mission and he'd never hear his voice again, he'd left him without a second thought, without a single good-bye.

Otacon had been there when Wolf had died, when his own stepsister died at least he had been there, with them. They didn't die alone, he was there with them, but despite everything he and Snake had together, despite the closeness they shared over all these years Snake had lied to him to keep him away, to separate them when Otacon wanted to be closest to him the most. At least the chance to say good-bye, Snake hadn't even given him that, he hadn't given him any time to prepare, to tell him how he felt, how through all the years and struggles and battles that they had gone through Otacon regretted so much but Snake made it easier, and he never told him how much he valued his friendship, his companionship until he was gone, and Otacon wanted to adjust the camera to check to make sure that he was seeing this right and he remembered he threw his mouse across the room and started sobbing.

He couldn't be gone, he couldn't just give up like this, why would he do this? Why would he kill himself? Why would he just stop living, stop believing in what he said gave his life meaning? Why would he leave everyone behind without a warning, without saying anything? How could he leave? Why? He abandoned everything and Otacon thought they went through all of this because they believed, and he'd have to do something with Snake's room and his weapons and his boxes and that Chinese food he left in the fridge and he couldn't be gone, Snake couldn't be _gone_, this couldn't be happening, this just couldn't be happening to him, this couldn't be happening not again for the love of God _not again_

Solid Snake was dead, and the robot by his side wept.


End file.
